In Part 2 of our series, Chef Freddy will go over reusing and planting your market-bought scallions, rosemary, and sage:

Scallions

Wait! Stop before you toss out the bottom piece of your scallions and try this!

Cut 1 ½ inch from the bottom of the scallion and place ½ inch of water in a pot. Cut and place the scallion bottoms in the pot, so they all stand upright in the water.

Change the water every three to four days after enough roots have grown in a week.

Pick the ones you think look the strongest and happiest and place them half way in vegetable potting soil in a 2-quart pot (4 -5 pieces per pot).

Eventually, when it looks like the same scallion bunch you bought at the store you can harvest the scallions by cutting the scallion leaves off one at a time a couple from each plant. This way your, plant keeps growing and you will have a steady supply of scallion leafs.

Rosemary & Sage

Next time you buy a bundle of Sage or Rosemary from your local grocery store or organic market and you have picked off all the leaves (with out damaging the stem itself), sort through the stems looking for the thickest and darkest stems.

Separate them from the rest and snip off the very bottom (the size of about a nickel piece thick).

You will need seed starting soil or make a combination of peat moss and vermiculite mix 50/50 of each in 2-quart pots .

I recommend you use a rooting hormone powder or liquid, although it is not necessary.

Take the stems you are going to grow, cut off the very soft part off the end of the plant, and what you should be left with is a bundle of stems between 4 to 6 inches.

Fill your pots with soil and water and thoroughly let drain. At this stage, add the rooting hormone and follow its directions.

In each pot, place a stem 1 ½ to 2 inches deep, spacing them at least 1 inch apart (4 to 5 stems per pot).

For about 2 weeks, keep in a well-shaded area, like under an oak tree or in a corner of a solid fence where it only gets partial sun through the day. Keep soil slightly damp at all times and NEVER let it dry out.

When you find that a few weeks have passed and your new plants have grown new leaves, you can move it out into more sun slowly.

Please Note: Sage has more delicate leaves, but the very small leaves that you did not use can be left on, which helps the plant photosynthesize, giving it more energy to grow roots.

Below are some great tips from Chef Freddy on how to reuse vegetable seeds from vegetables you buy at the market. Don’t panic! There will be loss of plants, as not all will take, so the more you plant the better odds you will have.

Ginger

Ginger plant

You will need vegetable potting soil and a 1-gallon pot of your choice.

At the grocery store or local market, pick up a piece of ginger (with up to 3 fingers no matter how big or small it may be).

Fill pot 3/4th of the way to the top with soil, place you ginger root in the middle of the pot with all of its fingers flat on the soil’s surface, and then cover it with 2-3 inches of soil.

Water the seedling well, and keep the soil moist and well drained.

Place the pot in a full to partial sunny location and be patient. Within two months, sometimes longer if it’s in its dormant time of year like winter months, you will see growth. After six months or longer you will see many new growths you can harvest and start the cycle over again.

Sweet Potatoes / Sweet Potato Vines

Sweet Potato Plant

You will need vegetable potting soil and a rectangular deep planter, and in this case, you need a large surface area for the vine to cover all the surface of the soil, while not allowing it to hang off the edge too much.

Find a sweet potato (or more) with as many dimples and eyes on the skin as possible (nothing larger then the palm of your hand).

Fill the planter with soil to the top of the inner rim and saturate the soil with water and make sure it drains well.

Then in the middle of the planter, place the sweet potatoes on the surface of the soil and press down gently creating solid contact between sweet potato and the soil.

Keep in a bright light area until you have vines of at least 6 inches, then move to a sunny location. And as the vines grow, make sure they grow on the surface of the soil. As they grow, the vines get thicker creating new roots, which is what you want. The new roots eventually swell up into baby sweet potatoes.

Please note: Each length of vine can be cut at 2 foot intervals to create new clone plants and faster growing potatoes. After six to eight months, a good vine should yield a couple pounds of young sweet potatoes. Be patient!